There is an exchange of fire in a park in New York. A small child is fatally hit. Mayor de Blasio is now promising tougher action against the increasing violence in the metropolis.
A one-year-old child was killed after being shot in New York. The little boy was in his stroller on Sunday night during a barbecue party in a park in the Brooklyn borough when two men started shooting for reasons unknown, the police said. Three men were injured, the toddler was hit in the stomach and died shortly after in hospital. “It’s so painful,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “It’s not something we can ever look away from.”
The number of shootings in the metropolis has risen sharply in recent weeks. In the first six months or so of the year, according to New York police, there were 585 incidents of gunfire, compared with 381 last year. 181 people died compared to 147 in the previous year. Around a third of the shootings that year occurred in June alone. Among other things, a 15-year-old teenager and a man who was crossing the street with his six-year-old daughter died in the past few weeks.
Corona crisis and police reform
Mayor de Blasio promised tougher action and blamed the corona crisis and its effects on people. Other politicians blamed the reforms of the police and the judiciary. For example, due to the coronavirus pandemic, many prison inmates who, for example, had only a small remaining sentence, were released early. Other politicians criticized the insufficient work of the New York police.
It is generally not uncommon for New York’s crime rate to rise in the summer. In addition, the numbers are still far from the records of the early 1990s, when more than 2000 people were shot in the metropolis each year.
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